Head Extreme Elite Padel Racket 2023

HEAD launched the Extreme family in 2023 to replace its Delta diamonds, and Racketspecialisten's review, quoted on padel.fyi, gives the main aim of the change: a bigger sweet spot. The Elite takes that furthest. Its face is fibreglass rather than carbon, its head is 494 cm² on Tennis Nuts' sheet, and padel.fyi puts its feel at medium-soft. Put those together and you get a diamond that gives a little on contact, holds the ball a fraction longer and doesn't punish a ball struck slightly off centre the way a hard carbon frame does.

Power is the one thing every tester agrees on. A 365 g diamond pushes a smash through the court without a full swing, and the soft face adds some free pace on top. Spin is another story. With a smooth surface and no grit, padel.fyi rates it 5 out of 10 for spin, so a kick smash or a heavy vibora won't grab the way it would on a textured 2026 frame.

Listings for this racket contradict each other more than most. HEAD's sheet, as Tennis Nuts reproduces it, gives 365 g with a 10 g tolerance and a medium, even balance. padel.fyi and another retailer call it head-heavy, at about 270 mm. HEAD doesn't name the core on the sheets we found; padel.fyi lists a medium EVA. We've kept both balance readings in the spec table rather than pick one. The testers' high power scores fit the head-heavy reading better.

The reviewers disagree too, and on the one score that matters most for a diamond. Padelzoom gives it 9.5 for control, padel.fyi 8.0 and Racketspecialisten 6.5. Our reading is that it depends on what you call control: the big, soft face is easy to keep in court, but a high balance makes small, precise touches harder. Expect a racket that forgives width more than it rewards finesse.

Nothing in the current Extreme family replaces the Elite directly. The cheap Evo Extreme keeps a fibreglass face but is a teardrop, and above it every diamond now has carbon on the face and Power Foam inside: the light 350 g Extreme One, the 360 g Extreme Motion and the 370 g Extreme Pro. The closest in spirit is the fibreglass Extreme Team, a diamond aimed at the same intermediate player.

Outside the Extreme name, HEAD's other fibreglass diamond for club players is the Coello Team 2026, and the cheaper Head Cyber is the entry option.

Spin players should look elsewhere first. The smooth face is the Elite's biggest weakness, and HEAD's 2026 carbon diamonds all have textured faces; the diamond padel rackets page lists them. Absolute beginners are better off with a teardrop too; a diamond's sweet spot sits high whatever the face is made of, and the best padel racket for intermediate page is a better list once you're hitting cleanly.

A smooth face gives you nothing to bite with, so a fresh, tacky grip matters more here than on a rough-faced racket: the Head Xtreme Soft three-pack is thin and grippy, and padel grips lists the rest. Tape the top of the frame from the racket protector range before its first knock on the glass.

For balls, the Head One tube is a sensible club ball, and padel balls explains the faster ones. A Head Tour L bag keeps two rackets and shoes together, with more choice on padel bags and court shoes on padel shoes. The whole range is on padel rackets, and the guide to choosing a padel racket explains balance and shape if the numbers above are new to you.